# Doctor Who -- 1651 England how ethnically diverse? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 27, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908 "2015-10-27T21:51:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/1 "2015-10-27T21:51:16Z")
Here’s a [screencap from the episode](http://imgur.com/93f0jDP) “The Woman Who Lived”. I counted 35 faces in the wide shot of the villagers in the scene (gathered for a hanging), and of those, 8 not Saxon/Norman. Is this a reasonable ethnic mix for a random village in England 500 years ago? This stems from [my comment in the Doctor Who Season 9 thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18808871&postcount=322), which was: > [@](#): > > I did think it was a remarkably diverse village watching the hanging. Am I wrong on that assessment? This almost seems like GQ actually, but because it stems from the TV show I’m putting it here. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/2 "2015-10-27T22:04:48Z")
If it were in London the black faces would have been not _so_ odd, though the proportion is pretty high. There were already black slave-servants in the city by the mid-16th century and it was quite in vogue by the 18th. I see at least a couple Indian-looking faces, which would have been vastly more unlikely in that year, though not impossible. Most unbelievable were the happy smiling faces of black women chatting with white neighbors. _Kinda_ unlikely given social mores - it would be more realistic is the black faces were all back in the fringe of the crowd and looking somber. Of course if we’re talking small town England - not a chance in hell, certainly not in 1651. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/3 "2015-10-27T22:12:25Z")
It was [Tyburn Gallows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn), which in the mid 17th Century _was_ a village but on the outskirts of London; now it would be located in Marble Arch. Public hangings there attracted huge crowds from the metropolis, which at the time had an appreciable black population. The program was perfectly correct in having a black spectators at a hanging. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/4 "2015-10-27T22:19:00Z")
And if you’d like a further cite that 17th Century London had a black population, I’m going to have to refer you to Peter Ackroyd’s _London: A Biography_, specifically Chapter 73, page 711: “…by the mid seventeenth century, blacks had become unremarkable if still unfamiliar members of the urban community.” ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/5 "2015-10-27T22:38:00Z")
And the quote continues > [@](#): > > Most of them were still indentured or enslaved and, according to James Walvin’s The Black Presence, “consigned to the status of sub-human property”; the evidence of their existence in London is thereby confined to "decaying headstones, crude statistics in crumbling parish registers, cryptic advertisements. which doesn’t square terribly well with the scene in question. The non-whites looked to be free peasants, not servants. And again, I never requested proof “17th Century London had a black population”, rather the question was about the percentage in the crowd. Unstated was the social classes looked off. (I don’t expect perfect historical accuracy in my ‘time traveler in a box’ stories, so it wasn’t big deal, just an aside.) ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/6 "2015-10-27T23:20:44Z")
Pehaps you’d like to address your claim that medievalpoc is “crazy”, then. It’s links are fascinating, and [its aims seem quite reasonable to me](http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/96277011215/pocket-guide-to-some-of-the-claims-tumblr-blog): > [@](#): > > …throughout the history of Europe, people of colour have been present in various places at various times, some as visitors, some as residents, and contemporary works of art provide evidence of this. This is because international trade, travel and migration have always been part of human life. There was never a time when Europe was exclusively white-populated and had no contact with other parts of the world. This isn’t the first time this question has come up; when _The Shakespeare Code_ aired a lot of people were quite scathing at seeing black Elizabethans depicted, when _obviously everyone knew_ Londoners were all white. If this blog and a few BBC scriptwriters set about to redress that historical misconception, a little dramatic license in numbers isn’t a mortal sin. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/7 "2015-10-27T23:30:00Z")
Nor am I claiming “dramatic license in numbers” is a mortal sin. Did you read the last sentence of my post? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/8 "2015-10-27T23:47:09Z")
Of course it’s not representative of an English village around the time of the Civil War, however … > [@](#): > > 8.1. As the nation became increasingly involved in the slave trade from the sixteenth century onwards, one of the by-products was the importation of a small number of unwilling Africans[25] and by the beginning of the seventeenth century there was an established African community in England.[26] From the 1650s the numbers of Africans brought to the British Isles began to increase markedly[27] and by the late eighteenth century there is documented evidence that tens of thousands of people of African descent lived in Britain.[28] > **[A summary history of immigration to Britain](https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/48)** > > NB Please see an updated briefing on the topics discussed in this paper by clicking this link: 'The History of Immigration to the UK' ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/9 "2015-10-28T00:14:57Z")
> [@emarkp](#): > > Nor am I claiming “dramatic license in numbers” is a mortal sin. Did you read the last sentence of my post? It seems a little jarring that in an episode about an immortal Viking woman who cross-dresses as a highwayman in order to steal an amulet that, with the aid of a human sacrifice, will enable her fire-breathing alien lion-man accomplice to open a portal to another dimension so that the immortal woman can escape Earth, your concerns were that the black extras were too numerous and too happy. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/10 "2015-10-28T00:16:24Z")
So you didn’t read it. Sigh. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/11 "2015-10-28T00:16:46Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > If this blog and a few BBC scriptwriters set about to redress that historical misconception, a little dramatic license in numbers isn’t a mortal sin. Maybe not a mortal sin but doesn’t making it look like the non-whites in the crowd are happy equals sanitize the actual historical situation? I have noticed from time to time in NuWho that they stretch poetic license in order to be color blind quite often. It’s an entertaining TV show not a history lecture so it doesn’t matter at all except when it pulls you out of the story. Although when talking about Doctor Who the worse mortal sin has always been the atrocious American accents used in various episodes. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/12 "2015-10-28T00:22:56Z")
It’s not necessarily evidence of the presence of dark-skinned people in early modern Britain, but Shakespeare was able to make one a general of the Venetian army. Presumably he found “Moors” exotic but not completely unfamiliar, and expected his audience would as well. As for the other people of color in the screenshot, I read them as Hispanic. Possibly Sephardic Jews from Spain, descended from those expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. Of course, the really unrealistic part is the people of color socializing with whites as equals. But given that this scene is taking place in London, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/13 "2015-10-28T03:13:50Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Maybe not a mortal sin but doesn’t making it look like the non-whites in the crowd are happy equals sanitize the actual historical situation? True to a point, but to depict the actual historical situation would mean that there would be a lot fewer eyes, noses and limbs, and a lot more carbuncles, boils and weeping sores in the crowd. I doubt the life of a beggar or indentured servant during the Protectorate would be a bundle of laughs, either, black or white ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/14 "2015-10-28T03:58:34Z")
What the hell are “People of color” (colour is spelled wrong as well)? 1. It would have been unremarkable, and not all were slaves. England was a large trading power by then. And we are still a century from skin tone and ethnicity being a determining factor for social standing, at that time religious or secretarian persuasion would have been more relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/15 "2015-10-28T04:14:33Z")
> [@emarkp](#): > > Nor am I claiming “dramatic license in numbers” is a mortal sin. Did you read the last sentence of my post? I did; I’m not sure what your point was. You asked whether an England of the time would have been that ethnically diverse, it was pointed out that yes, there was a significant African population, and cites and sources were given. You then started talking about percentages and raised another issue of whether or not the population was free. To quote you from this thread: > [@](#): > > I counted 35 faces in the wide shot of the villagers in the scene (gathered for a hanging), and of those, 8 not Saxon/Norman. Is this a reasonable ethnic mix for a random village in England 500 years ago? A random village in England in the mid 17th Century, probably not, no. A representative London population - whose European members would be more than just descendants of Normans and Saxons, but everyone from Scandinavians to Turks, let’s not forget - present at at popular hanging at Tyburn? It’s not a bad stab at showing that yes, there was more diversity than is often thought. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/16 "2015-10-28T05:57:17Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > What the hell are “People of color” (colour is spelled wrong as well)? It’s an [Americanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color), hence the spelling ;). > [@](#): > > 1. It would have been unremarkable, and not all were slaves. England was a large trading power by then. And we are still a century from skin tone and ethnicity being a determining factor for social standing, at that time religious or secretarian persuasion would have been more relevant. Hmmm…I’ll split the difference with you. I think there would have been _few_ non-slave blacks in 17th century London and very, very few Indians of any standing. Britain didn’t even gain a foothold in India until 1608 and it remained small and precarious for the first few decades. London was indeed increasingly cosmopolitan, but not so much that non-European traders would have been tremendously common in the 1650’s - it was pretty far afield as an entrepôt for even Levantine traders. Most of that trade ( like the increasingly lucrative coffee trade, imported via the Ottomans ) was controlled by English traders going out, not Arabs and Turks coming in. And the social exclusion would really have little to do with skin color and everything to do with class. I really don’t think slaves would have been in the habit of cheerily chatting it up with free people ( even peasants ) at a hanging. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/17 "2015-10-28T06:20:24Z")
> [@](#): > > I counted 35 faces in the wide shot of the villagers in the scene (gathered for a hanging), and of those, 8 not Saxon/Norman. And why “Saxon/Norman” anyway? It’s set in 1651, not 1151, and that distinction had largely vanished by the 1300s. For a program set in a mid 17th century England on the verge of the Restoration, a cultural and linguistic distinction outdated by 300 years is far more anachronistic than the presence of a few African faces. You might as well call them American/Australian and be at least as accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/18 "2015-10-28T06:54:22Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > What the hell are “People of color” (colour is spelled wrong as well)? Are you new to the English language? You see, there have been numerous divergences in accepted standardized spellings of words between American and British dialects. Almost undoubtedly and by far the _ **most** _ often pointed out is the word color specifically, and other -or words like flavor, labor, etc. which no self-respecting American would be caught dead spelling with a “u”. I find it impossibly hard to believe you weren’t already aware of this. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/19 "2015-11-02T09:11:14Z")
also, he spelt “Spelled” wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2015, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908/20 "2015-11-02T09:50:40Z")
Th ethnic mix of the crowd is exactly the same ethnic mix of any crowd in Doctor Who - it can be ancient Rome, modern-day Liverpool or New New York in the year fifteen billion, you’ll see exactly the same faces, namely, those of the same random people who’d show up at a casting agency in Cardiff. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-1651-england-how-ethnically-diverse/735908.md?page=2)